The Flamingo's Smile: Reflections in Natural History

Front Cover
W. W. Norton & Company, 1985 - Nature - 476 pages
Evolutionary theory is the theme that binds together these essays on such seemingly disparate topics as the feeding habits of flamingos, flowers and snails that change from male to female and sometimes back again, and the extinction from baseball of the .400 hitter.

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Contents

I
13
II
21
III
23
IV
40
V
56
VII
64
VIII
78
IX
97
XXX
245
XXXI
261
XXXII
263
XXXIV
281
XXXVI
291
XXXVII
306
XXXIX
319
XL
333

X
99
XII
114
XIV
126
XVI
139
XVIII
153
XIX
155
XX
167
XXI
185
XXII
199
XXIV
213
XXV
215
XXVII
225
XXVIII
226
XXIX
230
XLI
335
XLII
347
XLIV
360
XLV
375
XLVI
377
XLVIII
392
L
403
LII
415
LIII
417
LV
427
LVII
438
LVIII
451
LIX
459
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About the author (1985)

Born in New York City in 1941, Stephen Jay Gould received his B.A. from Antioch College in New York in 1963 and a Ph.D. in paleontology from Columbia University in 1967. Gould spent most of his career as a professor at Harvard University and curator of invertebrate paleontology at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. His research was mainly in the evolution and speciation of land snails. Gould was a leading proponent of the theory of punctuated equilibrium. This theory holds that few evolutionary changes occur among organisms over long periods of time, and then a brief period of rapid changes occurs before another long, stable period of equilibrium sets in. Gould also made significant contributions to the field of evolutionary developmental biology, most notably in his work, Ontogeny and Phylogeny. An outspoken advocate of the scientific outlook, Gould had been a vigorous defender of evolution against its creation-science opponents in popular magazines focusing on science. He wrote a column for Natural History and has produced a remarkable series of books that display the excitement of science for the layperson. Among his many awards and honors, Gould won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His titles include; Ever Since Darwin, The Panda's Thumb, Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory and Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin. Stephen Jay Gould died on May 20, 2002, following his second bout with cancer.

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